eMit

eMit is an interactive A/V piece created with long time collaborator Tom Hill and designer Jon Watt as part of the BAT exhibition in Nottingham’s Wollaton Hall.
Inspired by bats use of echolocation the piece emits pulses of light and sound to locate audience members and respond to their location.

The central sculpture (designed and fabricated by Jon Watt) is made from 16 slats of cedar wood and contains 16 infrared range finders wired into an Arduino microcontroller. Originally I tried to use ultrasonic to be more in keeping with the projects inspiration but I found these to be unreliable for our needs. The sensors are polled at regular intervals to find the nearest object in their line of sight, with the sensors set 22.5 degrees apart we get a rough field of vision around the sculpture.

The Arduino then plugs into a small computer in the base of the sculpture. This is running software written in C++ using the library. The software creates a number of particle systems that are triggered to expand out from a users location when they are “seen”.

With each pulse of light, or location found sounds are triggered, these are made up of layers or Bats sounds both real ( pitched way down into human hearing range) and synthesised by Tom Hill.